Methane Myths

Myth 1.: Little or no methane is venting in the Arctic, so there's "nothing to worry about".

Reality 1.: Methane is venting from the seabed of the Arctic Ocean, but it can be hard to detect how much and where it originated from, in terms of source and location. Some satellites circle around Earth above the equator, making that they watch the Arctic through a thicker layer of atmosphere, which can mask detection of methane in the Arctic. Furthermore, since methane can quickly rise in the atmosphere and move with the wind, releases could be missed by flask and in situ measurements at surface levels unless measurements happen to be taken in close proximity to the point of release. Too little measuring is taking place and more should be done to monitor this.

The images below were made with polar-orbiting satellite data, which are better at monitoring the situation in the Arctic. The image below, from a post at the Arctic-news blog, shows methane over the Arctic Ocean on December 3, 2013.

[ click on image to enlarge ]

Above image indicates that methane is rising from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean; the methane couldn't have been blown by winds to the Arctic from elsewhere, since there weren't any large spots with high methane levels at other locations.

On December 3, 2013, methane reached levels as high as 2425 parts per billion (ppb). On December 6, 2013, levels were as high as 2524 ppb. On November 9, 2013, methane reached levels as high as 2662 ppb. The current period of extremely high levels of methane over the Arctic Ocean has lasted for months, as is also evident from the images further below, and is expected to continue beyond January 2014.

Below a combination of images showing methane levels over five earlier years (2009 on the left, to 2013 on the right), each time for the same period (January 21-31) - images by Dr. Leonid Yurganov.

The big worry is what will happen as temperatures rise even further. Warming due to higher concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is occurring much more vigorously in the Arctic than elsewhere on Earth. Waiting for further proof that methane is increasingly venting from the seabed of the Arctic Ocean carries the risk that it will be too late to do much to reverse the process by the time such research is completed. As is evident from the images below, methane is already venting from the seabed of the Arctic Ocean in large quantities.

Moreover, there is a wealth of evidence from scientists such as Igor Semiletov and Natalia Shakhova who have - year after year - been taking measurements in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, complete with first-hand reports that methane plumes have been detected.

"We've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures more than 1,000 metres in diameter. In a very small area, less than 10,000 square miles, we have counted more than 100 fountains, or torch-like structures, bubbling through the water column and injected directly into the atmosphere from the seabed," Dr Semiletov said, "We carried out checks at about 115 stationary points and discovered methane fields of a fantastic scale - I think on a scale not seen before. Some of the plumes were a kilometre or more wide and the emissions went directly into the atmosphere - the concentration was a hundred times higher than normal." - Vast methane 'plumes' seen in Arctic ocean as sea ice retreats, by Steve Connor in The Independent, December 13, 2011.

The image below shows a cluster of methane plumes, over one km in diameter, that appeared in the Laptev Sea end September 2011. The image is part of a paper on the unfolding "Methane Catastrophe".

Myth 2.: Hydrates cannot exist in water as shallow as in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf; therefore, "no methane could be venting there".

Reality 2.: Waters in the Arctic are relatively cold, compared to elsewhere; they are warming up, increasing the danger of methane release; anyway, as long as waters remain cold, hydrates can exist in sediments below the waters, even at shallow depths. Methane hydrates in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf can exist at depths as shallow as 20 m, while methane can be held both in the form of free gas and hydrates in the sediment underneath the seabed.http://www.skepticalscience.com/arctic-methane-outgassing-e-siberian-shelf-part2.html

Myth 3.: Global warming heats up the water in the Arctic from above, where there are no hydrates. It will take "hundreds of years" for this heat to reach the bottom of the sea.

Reality 3.: While the sun does heat up the waters in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) from above, the waters are quite shallow, making that surface heat can be mixed down to the seafloor more easily than in deeper waters. Additionally, warmer water enters the Arctic from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and from rivers in Siberia and North America. As the sea ice disappears, more open water allows more storms to develop that mix the waters, while tidal pressure differences will also become more pronounced.

At a presentation on November 30, 2010, Natalia Shakhova warned that the ESAS is now 5°C warmer, while additional factors enhance permafrost destabalization in the ESAS:

1. Decreasing sea ice extent;
2. Change in hydrological pattern:
- increasing frequency of high speed winds;
- increasing frequency of deep convection events (mixing to the bottom) during summer;
3. Warming of bottom water (up to 3°C during the last three decades)

Myth 4.: Even if heat did reach the seabed, it would take "hundreds of years" for the heat to penetrate the sediment.

Reality 4.: It can indeed take a long time for heat to propagate down the sediment. But it can also occur very rapidly, when heat is transferred down fluids in cracks and openings in the rock and sediment, called pingos, which were formed by local accumulation of hydrate (ice) below the sediment surface in the past, and by methane migrating upwards through conduits. Pingos and similar structures can link to deep-rooted plumbing systems that allow thermogenic fluid migration from several-kilometers-deep sedimentary basins.

Hydrates can not only become destabilized by a rise in temperature, but also by pressure changes, such as caused by earthquakes or landslides. Furthermore, when methane escapes a hydrate, it expands to 160 times its earlier volume; this explosive expansion itself can cause further destabilization of sediments that contain methane in the form of hydrates and free gas.

Myth 5.: Even if methane did escape from the seabed, "most of it" would be oxidized in the water - like in the Deepwater Horizon event - before reaching the atmosphere.

The IPCC highlights this in AR5, as shown on the image below.

Reality 5.: Methane won't get broken down easily in the Arctic, as this requires the presence of bacteria that can oxidize the methane, as well as free oxygen in the water. Once depleted, oxygen isn't quickly replenished in the Arctic. Lack of bacteria and depletion of oxygen in the waters of the Arctic could make it hard for oxidation to take place of methane that rises in the waters there.

In the Arctic, low temperatures mean there are less bacteria that need more time to break down the methane. In other places, currents may bring bacteria back to the location of the methane plume repeatedly. In the Arctic, many currents are long, so once bacteria flow away from the location of the plume, they may have been driven out of the Arctic Ocean or may return only after a long time, i.e. too long to survive in Arctic waters which are cold and often ice-covered, so a lot of time little or no sunshine penetrates the waters.

In the Arctic, the danger is much larger that methane releases will overwhelm the capacity of bacteria to break it down in the water. In case of large abrupt releases, the danger is that much of the methane will reach the atmosphere unaffected, for a number of reasons, including:
- shallow waters mean that the methane has to travel through less water to enter the atmosphere
- most of the year, Arctic waters are cold, so less microbes are present to break down methane
- long sea currents make it less likely that such microbes will return to a location where methane is rising
- in case of abrupt releases, a lot of methane rises at once, giving microbes less opportunity to break it down
- methane released from hydrates is very concentrated, making that where more methane rises, methane is proportionally more prominent, compared to the presence of oxygen and microbes

Myth 6.: Methane has a short lifetime in the atmosphere. It will be broken down in "about a decade".

The suggestion that methane only stays in the atmosphere for "about a decade" downplays methane's importance. An example is this publication (2011) in Nature:

Reality 6.: According to the IPCC (AR5, 2013), the perturbation lifetime for methane is 12.4 years.

The IPCC figures do take into account the fact that methane extends its own lifetime by depleting hydroxyl. However, this is an average figure. Large abrupt releases will overwhelm the system, especially in the Arctic where there is already very little hydroxyl present.http://www.mpg.de/5050963/atmosphere_self-cleaning

Large emissions extend the lifetime of all the methane that is present in the atmosphere, especially locally, as in case of large abrupt release in the Arctic. Hydroxyl levels in the Arctic are very low. Methane can remain active in the Arctic for decades at a very high warming potential, while the resulting summer warming (when the sun doesn't set) is likely to keep triggering further methane releases in the Arctic.http://methane-hydrates.blogspot.com/2013/04/methane-hydrates.html

Unlike CO2, methane's GWP does rise as more of it is released. Responses by ecosystems could increase methane's warming potential even further, especially in the Arctic where methane releases could accelerate the decline of snow and ice cover and trigger further methane releases, as also described at The potential impact of large abrupt release of methane in the Arctic.

It's also worth noting that the IPCC now gives methane a Radiative Forcing of 0.97 W/m2 (up from 48 W/m2 in 2007), as illustrated by the image below.

Myth 8.: "Not much methane" is stored in the Arctic; releases would be "low and gradual".

How much methane is present in sediments under the seabed of the Arctic Ocean, in the form of free gas and hydrates? On this, the IPCC says in AR5 WG1 FAQ6:

That's quite an understatement, if not a deliberate downplaying of the danger by the IPCC.

The amounts of methane stored in the Arctic are vast. Natalia Shakhova et al. (2010) estimate the accumulated potential for the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) region alone (image on the right) as follows:

organic carbon in permafrost of about 500 Gt

about 1000 Gt in hydrate deposits

about 700 Gt in free gas beneath the gas hydrate stability zone.

Natalia Shakhova et al. (2008) consider release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage as highly possible for abrupt release at any time. By comparison, the total amount of methane currently in the atmosphere is about 5 Gt.

Reality 9b.: Historically, atmospheric levels of methane (CH4) have risen much faster than those of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O), as illustrated by the image on the right.

Granted, the (rapid) rise of methane did 'slow down' for a few years from about 2000, but then it picked up its pace again. This temporary 'slow-down' is often focused on by deniers and it's often attributed to stronger energy-related emission controls in the late 2000s, in sectors such as fossil fuel drilling and distribution, and its use in transport and electricity-generation.

However, levels have risen strongly again since about 2008, as illustrated by above image. Furthermore, as said, methane levels have historically risen even faster than levels of carbon dioxide and also when looking at the overall time span from 1750 to 2015.

While this historic rapid rise of methane levels is very worrying, future levels may rise even more rapidly, due to large abrupt releases of methane from the Arctic seabed.

These type of myths are different than the other myths on this page. Responses to other myths on this page show the mounting evidence that high methane levels over the Arctic Ocean are caused by global warming which in turn is caused by people. Importantly, while other myths seek to deny that global warming is the result of polluting emissions by people, these type of myths do not deny that global warming is taking place, they merely seek to put the blame on scapegoats, in an effort to eulogize and thus perpetuate the use of polluting products. These myths seek to divert the attention away from polluting products as the cause of global warming. So, while other myths seek to spread the idea that global warming was a hoax, most of these myths seek to spread the idea that climate change was not caused by polluting products, but was instead caused by other things, such as chemicals deliberately added to contrails, by HAARP, by population growth, industrial growth or growth of civilization, by changes in planetary orbits, by capitalism, by communism or by human activity in general.

Reality: Global warming is caused by consumption of specific polluting products. Apart from their impact on the climate, these products also inflict horrendous damage to our health, to our energy and food security, to our wallets and to global peace and prosperity. Global warming is real, it's taking place now, and this has been pointed out by scientists over and over again. There is no scientific doubt as to what is the cause: Global warming is caused by emissions from burning of fossil fuel and biomass, by the use of Portland cement and nitrogen fertilizers, by livestock, by cutting and burning forests to raise more livestock, etc., and by the feedbacks resulting from the consumption of such products. Current methane releases from what-used-to-be-permafrost and from seafloor sediments are much higher than what they were historically, and global warming is to blame for that. As said, global warming is caused by consumption of specific polluting products. Energy use itself doesn't necessarily cause polluting emissions, instead using specific products to produce energy does cause polluting emissions, while use of specific other products to produce energy will not cause polluting emissions.

Scarcity of resources can be a challenge in the necessary shift to energy production that does not cause polluting emissions. Nonetheless, this is no excuse to abandon clean energy targets or extend them further in the future. Instead, it should double our efforts to look for alternative ways to produce products, as illustrated by the video below in which Elon Musk describes the resources needed to produce the Tesla electric vehicles.

Accordingly, there is no doubt that emissions by people can and should be reduced rapidly, by shifting to clean products. Having said that, emission cuts alone will not suffice, given the high levels of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere and oceans, and given that many feedbacks have already started to kick in. One of the dangers of this situation is near-term mass extinction of species (including humans). In many ways, we have already entered a mass extinction event. The conclusion is that comprehensive and effective action is needed as described in the Climate Plan.

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The Climate Plan calls for comprehensive action through multiple lines of action implemented across the world and in parallel, through effective policies such as local feebates. The Climate Plan calls for a global commitment to act, combined with implementation that is preferably local. In other words, while the Climate Plan calls for a global commitment to take comprehensive and effective action to reduce the danger of catastrophic climate change, and while it recommends specific policies and approaches how best to achieve this, it invites local communities to decide what each works best for them, provided they do indeed make the progress necessary to reach agreed targets. This makes that the Climate Plan optimizes flexibility for local communities and optimizes local job and investment opportunities.

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Global temperatures are rising fast. In the Arctic, temperatures are rising even faster (interactive charts below and right). For 2010 and 2011, NASA recorded anomalies of over 2°C at higher latitudes (64N to 90N), with anomalies of over 3°C at latitudes 79N and 81N in 2010.

For November 2010, anomalies of 12.5°C were recorded at latitude 71N, longitude -79 (Baffin Island, Canada). At specific moments in time and at specific locations, anomalies can be even more striking. As an example, on January 6, 2011, temperature in Coral Harbour, located at the northwest corner of Hudson Bay in the province of Nunavut, Canada, was 30°C (54°F) above average.